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Lourdes is a small town in the Hautes-Pyrénées département in southwest France. It is the largest Catholic pilgrimage destination in France and one of the most popular Catholic shrines in the world. Lourdes lies 497 miles south of Paris in the foothills of the Pyrenees mountains. The small town of only 17,000 inhabitants receives more than 5 million pilgrims and tourists each year thanks to visions of the Virgin Mary reported by a young girl named Bernadette in 1858.